Jeff Wartman

The lies of Roland Burris are getting major media play.  From Mark Brown, writing in the Sun-Times today:

I’ll leave it to the proper investigative bodies to decide whether Roland Burris committed perjury last month in testimony before the Illinois House impeachment committee. From a strict legal perspective, maybe he didn’t.

But I’ll tell you straight up, our new U.S. senator proved himself to be a lying little sneak.

The word preposterous comes to my mind to describe Burris’ explanation — and accompanying performance Sunday — in which he basically says his previous failure to disclose relevant contacts with Rod Blagojevich’s inner circle about the Senate vacancy was simply a matter of everyone else’s failure to ask him the right questions or give him time to answer.

I was at that hearing, and I have reviewed the transcript. Burris had plenty of opportunity to tell the whole truth and, for whatever reason, failed.

The charge of perjury may be debatable — Burris may not have “technically” committed perjury.  But as Brown points out, whether or not Burris committed perjury, he has still shown himself to a liar.